


Shockwaves

by lilbadgerpal



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Remus Lupin, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fanon, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Full Moon, Gay Sirius Black, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian Marlene McKinnon, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Minor Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Raising Harry Potter, Remus Lupin Lives, Self-Indulgent, Sirius Black Lives, Time Skips, Werewolf Remus Lupin, and Will Not bury my gays, because I'm a gay sap, canon marauders? who are they? i only know fanon i'm sorry, check notes for cw please, diverges at the end, jk rowling stans get fucked :), moomy and dadfoot feels, mostly - Freeform, snape gets his shit rocked in this too, this is queer, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:07:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27853066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilbadgerpal/pseuds/lilbadgerpal
Summary: There are things archeologists call ‘major geological events’. Remus finds himself separating his own life into such events. Only the biggest “holy shit” moments make the list. He counts six. Six impact craters and rolling shockwaves that have built his life thus far.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Marauders & Lily Evans Potter, Marauders & Marauders, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black & Marlene McKinnon, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. shockwaves

**Author's Note:**

> chapter 1's cw's:  
> minor swearing

Before Remus Lupin thought it possible for him to attend Hogwarts, or live a relatively normal life in the wizarding world, he studied muggle archeology alongside his independent schoolwork. He was always an extremely bright child, and with his lack of friends and abundance of bedridden time due to his condition, reading was not in short supply. Along with Jane Austen, young Remus read about the cenozoic era and the precambrian explosion. He had a certain fascination with the simultaneous permanence and impermanence of life. Call it cynical, but he took comfort in knowing that no matter how badly he fucked up, it would be forgotten in the geological timeline. But he also found meaning in the possibility that people in another time would find the remains of his life and understand that he was the victim, not the monster. Maybe one day, they would see the person behind the scars.

In this field of study, there are things archeologists call ‘major geological events’. Only the biggest and most impactful disasters make this cut. Life appearing on Earth, the meteor that ended the age of the dinosaurs and plunged the world into darkness. The Beatles breaking up. Remus finds himself separating his own life into such events, even after all these years. Only the biggest “holy shit” moments make the list. He counts six. Six impact craters and rolling shockwaves that have built his life thus far.

  
  



	2. Event Zero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Event Zero is not assigned a value. It is the beginning of Remus’ life as he knows it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings:  
> graphic imagery of werewolf attack/transformation  
> blood/injury  
> injury/attack on child  
> hospital setting  
> parental tension
> 
> proceed with caution!

Event Zero is not assigned a value. It is the beginning of Remus’ life as he knows it. The beginning of life as he has lived it for the vast majority of his existence. It is the catalyst.

Lyall Lupin had always been a prejudiced man, fearful of the unknown and the unknowable. That prejudice seeped into every aspect of his life, and when a piece of anti-werewolf legislation fell upon his desk, it found no exception. Lyall signed off, stating, “Those people should be locked up, or put down like the beasts they are.”

When that day turned dusk, he walked up the garden path to the cozy Welsh cottage, stooping to pick a Gerber daisy from the bushes that lined the stone walkway. When he entered the dwelling, he kissed his wife’s cheek, placed the flower behind her ear, and knelt to ruffle his five-year-old son’s crush of sandy curls.

“‘Ello, Rem. Were you good for Mummy today?” he asked. Remus nodded in response, smiling gap-toothily. Hope looked on fondly, and ordered her boys to tuck into dinner before it got cold.

Twilight fell early that night, but a bright yellow eye of a moon shone, throwing strange shadows on the ceiling of Remus’ bedroom. He watched them as Hope read him a bedtime story, imaging the dark shapes moulding like putty to create the scenes from the Hobbit. He continued to watch gusts of wind toss the garden about via the projection after his mum kissed his forehead and bade him goodnight. He was being lulled to sleep by the flickering leaves and branches. Until a hulking figure blotted out his nighttime fancies.

After the shadow, came the window sliding open. Then the smell of iron and fur, meat and rot. Then the pain. Unbearable pain. Remus barely had time to unleash a chilling scream before Fenrir Greyback’s yellowed fangs sank through his Charlie Brown pyjamas and into his shoulder. His blood painted the powder blue walls crimson as Fenrir slashed once, twice, again and again and again across his torso. By the time his parents came streaking in, Fenrir was leaping gleefully from the windowsill, leaving a blood-stained nursery and a wailing child in his wake. 

The Healers at St. Mungo’s did their best, but the damage was done. There was no cure for lycanthropy. Remus drifted in a nether between consciousness and sleep for days, hearing only fragments of sentences.

“— loves you —”

“— monster —”

“— monthly.”

“— a losing battle, sir.”

Healers came in and out of his room to coat him in spells, to soak his worst wounds in a foul-smelling solution. They remarked how skinny and pale he’d become in his two month stay at hospital, worrying over his weight loss continuing into his discharge. But much more has been taken from Remus than his puppy fat and rosy cheeks. Remus had been reborn. No. Not reborn. That sounds too positive. Corrupted. Remus was corrupted at the hands of a monster.

The following week after his discharge was spent mutely accepting bowls of soup from his mother, staring blankly as she read him bedtime stories, crying out in the dark after jolting awake from a nightmare. His father was granted a leave of absence for a month to care for his ‘ailing son’. He mostly stood in the doorway of the spare bedroom (they’d had to move Remus out of his old room, he was so terrified of it, even after the blood stains were scoured away) while Hope spooned broth into his son’s mouth. The guilt and pity on his face palpable to even a five year old Remus.

For his first full moon, Hope and Lyall locked Remus in his old room, as instructed by the St. Mungo’s specialists. His screams, breaking bones, dislocating joints, tearing, ripping, and slamming joined together in a cacophonous symphony that haunted his parents in the silence that followed that dawn. Hope spent most of the night sobbing, trying to open the door to comfort her son only to be pulled back by Lyall. She succeeded in opening the door once, giving them both a glimpse at a smallish wolf with scarlet staining his sandy fur, surrounded by the wreckage of what was once Remus’ bed. Lyall immediately slammed it closed and sat in front of it, breathing hard. Hope sobbed even harder, as a snarl sounded from behind the door and a weight slammed up against it, rattling the hinges. She collapsed into her husband, limp and choking, and Lyall steeled his own eyes and quivering jaw against a broken cry.

When the moon finally sunk below the horizon, his mother swept past Lyall and picked up the broken body of her son. His mom doted on him and tried her best to treat him the same, if not a bit softer, but Remus saw the damage done in his father’s eyes. At five years of age, Remus Lupin watched as his father fell out of love with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first two chapters are the shortest lol, i promise it gets longer each chapter!


	3. First Event

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years full of increasingly intense moons and periods of healing in between passed by and Remus and his parents grew accustomed to a grim routine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no warnings for this chapter :)

Five years full of increasingly intense moons and periods of healing in between passed by. Remus and his parents grew accustomed to the grim routine— as accustomed as one  _ could _ become to these sorts of things. Lyall remained distant but amiable. Hope remained warm and fussed over Remus. Remus even found spots of happiness in the intervals between transformations. He studied muggle culture and literature, taught himself maths and sciences and, yes, natural history. Most of all, he read beautiful, dusty volumes from his parents’ collection and wrote poetry and stories to rival their beauty. 

One thing underlined everything in misery, though. Remus was desperately lonely and steeped in self-hatred. Remus’ parents cautioned him against making any very close friends, lest they figure out his secret and contact the ministry, forcing him to register as a werewolf publicly and subject himself to discrimination. One neighbor boy, Gordon, had become a small comfort for Remus when he was around seven years old, but his wizarding parents became suspicious of Remus’ monthly periods of illness and injury, forcing the Lupins to move to a Muggle village in a different part of Wales.

The new cottage had a magically reinforced shed where Remus spent each full moon and a small home office for his homeschooling. Because if there was one thing that was clear about Remus Lupin, it was that there was no way he would be able to attend Hogwarts, no matter how prolific he was at magic already. No matter how badly he yearned to go there.

In August of Remus’ eleventh year, there was a knock at the door. When Hope opened it, she expected to find old Ms. Greene from next door looking for her cat again. Instead she found a man with long white hair and a sternum-length beard standing in her front garden. He looked extremely out of place in his deep indigo robes, speckled with golden stars, and a matching fez with a golden tassel. He stood stooped over Hope’s begonias, seeming to admire their growth. Though Hope was a Muggle, though she could not sense the magic rolling off the man on her doorstep, she knew immediately he was a wizard.

“Er—can I help you, sir?” she asked, her pulse rising when his half-moon spectacles met her eyes. The man smiled jovially, but Hope couldn’t shake the fear that the Ministry had found out about her son at last.

“I dare say that I can help you, Ms. Lupin. Are your husband and son in? This concerns them as well.”

Hope somehow sensed the man already knew the answer to the question, so she found no use in lying. Instead, she nodded once, her mouth set tightly.

“Excellent,” the stranger said, and he looked like he meant it. “I am Albus Dumbledore. May I come inside for a word?” Hope jumped out of her shock.

“Oh—yes. Yes, of course. My apologies, Mr. Dumbledore. I’m afraid we are not used to visitors. Not to mention visitors that are…”

“Wizards. Yes, I’m sure. No need to apologize. I come unannounced; it is I who should be asking forgiveness, but I’m afraid I did not wish to put much in writing.”

Hope nodded again breathlessly, racking her brain for what she heard the name ‘Dumbledore’ in reference to from Lyall.

“Remus! Lyall! There’s a Mr. Albus Dumbledore here to have a chat with us,” Hope called into the kitchen, where she knew the two sat reading a novel and the paper respectively. A pause. And then the sound of a chair being toppled over in an attempt to leap out of the seat. Lyall appeared at the doorway looking bewildered.

“Professor, what brings you here?” Lyall asked. Remus trailed in after him, looking concerned at his parents alertness.

“This handsome, young lad right here is what brings me to your lovely home.” Dumbledore looked around at the shocked faces with an understanding smile. “Let us sit, and talk. We have much to discuss.” With that, he swept into where he inexplicably knew the sitting room was.

“As I’m sure you are well aware,” Dumbledore began, once the family was settled opposite him on a squashy sofa, “Remus is coming up on the time in his life when he is expected to begin some form of magical education or training if he wishes to one day become a qualified wizard. It has been brought to my attention that you have returned your letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with the response that you will be training young Remus from home. Should this be because you wish not to send him to my school, I understand completely and will not be offended, I assure you. However, I suspect this has something to do with Remus’  _ condition _ . Am I wrong in assuming this?” All three Lupins sat stock still until Hope cleared her throat and spoke up.

“Remus is quite ill. He is too fragile to be away from home, Professor Dumbledore.” Dumbledore fixed her with a piercing gaze.

“Dear Ms. Lupin, however understandable and commendable your relentless protection of your son is, consider it safe to confide in me. I have many friends laying low in some unsavory communities. Being me does have its privileges. As headmaster, I make it my business to know the special cases I may be facing each year in order to extend the proper assistance. My informants do not report their knowledge to the Ministry, so do not fret on that account, but I do ask that they refer me to students’ families who have more unique cases. In short, I know of your son’s lycanthropy and I am here to offer him a place at my school.”

Remus remembers his extremities going numb during Dumbeldore’s speech. The one secret he needed to keep, and this stranger knew without ever even meeting him. And he still wanted Remus at Hogwarts. His father recovered from the second bombshell first.

“How?” Lyall asked. “How will he be able to transform safely each month while at the castle? There are too many opportunities for things to go wrong.”

“I agree. But Remus will not be transforming in the castle,” Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling. “I have a suggestion.” Dumbledore then smiled so eagerly that Remus felt wanted for the first time since he was bitten.

A month later, Remus was kissing his mother goodbye on Platform 9 ¾ and lugging his steamer trunk onto the scarlet red steam engine. Shuffling on shaking legs down the aisle, he stopped at a compartment populated by two boys with jet black hair, one East Asian and one Indian, and a dumpier boy with sandy hair and a round face and eyes. Remus straightened the collar peeking out from beneath his lumpy, oatmeal-colored jumper and pushed inside.


End file.
